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Topic: fancy lithium battery (Read 4137 times)

a standard solar charge controller is not going to work wellyour max charge voltage of 14.2V is just fine, but your cut in voltage is usually 13V, and that is 30% capacity on the battery that is near what your load disconnect voltage should beyou are going to need something like that DC to DC switcher I linked to (as it will not cycle your batteries pointlessly)or a solar charger that has the correct voltages for the LiPO4, cut in charge voltage 13.2V would work but 13V is way to lowsome of the ones you already have might be adjustable, but many out there are not.

edit:would using the standard lead acid hardware work ? yes it would still be lighter than lead, but might not last longer

After a weekend of research on the feasibility of upgrading the battery in my go kit setup, I have for now shelved the idea because I cannot find a practical way to interface a LiFePo4 battery with my solar panel. The solutions I did find were either too technically complex for my application and/or required more hardware that I'm willing to lug around.

As it sits right now my go kit fits in a backpack and weighs less than 20 pounds; that includes dipole antennas, coax, battery, solar, radio...everything I need to go on the air on HF up to 440. I'm not going to do much batter than that. Trading out a heavy SLA battery for a LiFePo4 that is lighter but needs extra junk to make it work is at best a break-even proposition and in many ways is going backwards.